Personal Application
PERSONAL APPLICATION
í. Have disappointments moved you toward God or away from Him?
Where do you see God at work in your life today?
2. God declares that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness," interceding on our behalf. Invite the Holy Spirit to be your Counselor, Comforter, and Advócate and to pray for you and your concerns.
THE HEART OF GOD
"The Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'children of the living God.' "
HOSEA 1:10
believe one of the most profound poems ever written was penned by an Englishman named Francis Thompson. Thompson was a genius, but he became a drug addict and was on the run for many years. Toward the later parí of his life he wrote the magniñcent masterpiece he called "The Hound of Heaven." The poem describes God as the persistent Hound who, with loving feet, follows and follows until He catches up with this person who is trying to escape Him. Wrote
Thompson:
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
As the poem comes to an end, Thompson depicts the persistent cry of God to the one who flees His presence, the one God pursues to the end:
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
With the wisdom of one who had found himself chased after, Thompson noted the heart of God and the contradiction of humanity. We run away, fearful that if we have God, we might have nothing else beside. And God says, "You were weak and blind and miserable when you were driving Me away, because you were actually driving love away from you. I am the One you seek."
We encounter a similar story in the book of Hosea. The life and ministry of the prophet Hosea is a fascinating, mystifying look at the love of God and the human tendency to push that love away and hide from it. Hosea was a prophet called by God to marry Gomer, a harlot who continually left the loving home
Hosea had provided to return to her life of prostitution. One can almost hear the whispers among the people to whom Hosea faithfully preached, until someone was brave enough to ask: "Hosea, can you tell us how it is you continué to love this woman, a woman who has so betrayed you and repeatedly abandoned her commitment to you? How can a holy man of God like you be joined to a woman such as this?"
And Hosea essentially responds, "I will be delighted to answer your question if you will ñrst answer a question of mine. How can a holy God like this love such a harlotrous people like us?"
The ñrst thing the book of Hosea reveáis over and over about the nature of God's relationship with us is that God gives to us a love we do not deserve. We do not merit it.
Second, not only is the love of God unmerited, it is also a love that grows and is sustained by relationship. Remarkably, God even utters a wedding vow, pledging
His love and faithfulness: "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord" (Hosea 2:19-20). The longer we walk with God, the more we understand how much of a gift this love is.
Through the prophet Hosea, God spoke graphically to a nation running from His presence: "A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord" (5:4). Yet mercifully God chases after them, woos them into His arms,
pays the price to buy them back, cleans them up, and takes them home. He declares, "I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God' " (2:23).
God's message through Hosea will send a deep ray of hope into our hearts if we listen carefully.
Indeed, in Christ, God makes His love plain to us. He shows us what it means to be human, removes the corruption of sin, and provides new life, hope, and meaning. God wants to see humanity flourish. Let us come to the cross as we are: children desiring love, sinners needing mercy, souls weary of running through our nights and days, and ready to follow the One who ordains us.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. Take time to read through the brief book of Hosea or speciñcally chapters 11 and 14. Where do you see instances of God's unmerited love?
2. How does Hosea's love for his adulterous wife foreshadow Christ's love for us as sinners?
PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. The story of Hosea can send a deep ray of hope into our hearts if we listen carefully. What particular detail of this story offers you hope?
2. In Christ, God removes the corruption of sin and provides new life, hope, and meaning. Where has Christ made the most difference in your life? Where might
He continué to transform you?
WHAT HAPPENED TO
YOUR HANDS?
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
Though the doors were locked, Jesús carne and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
JOHN 20:26-28
have often referenced what talk show host Larry King once said in his response to a particular question: "If you could select any one person across all of history to interview, who would it be?" Mr. King's answer was that he would like to interview Jesús Christ. When the questioner continued, "And what would you like to ask Him?" King said he would like to ask if He was indeed virgin-born because the answer would define history for him.
It is not possible to live without asking questions—and what better source for the answers than the One who claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life? If one could only be face-to-face with Him from whom life comes, how delightful would be those moments when the most confounding and painful questions of life are raised. Though unaware that they were walking with the risen Christ, the men who walked on the Emmaus Road said that their hearts burned within them as He opened up the past, the present, and the future. When they realized who He was, a light for all of history had been turned on.
In the same way, it may be that when the time comes to sit across the table from the Lord of history, the answer to the skeptic and the believer will be more visible than it will be in need of utterance. This clue carne to me in the form of a question inscribed on a painting I saw in a pastor's office in Puerto Rico. Just before we went into the sanctuary, my eyes caught a glimpse of it directly in front of his desk. It was the picture of a little girl holding the hand of Jesús, even as He tenderly gazed at her. She was clasping His hand as she asked Him, "Que
paso con tus manos ?"—"What happened to Your hands?"
That question, I suspect, contains the answer to the doubt of the skeptic, the duplicity of the believer, and the despair of the suffering.
It also carries Larry King's question to a more profound level. The Virgin birth may only prove to the skeptic that naturalism cannot explain the world's existence and that God has supernaturally intervened in history. In a supernatural framework that is possible. But "What happened to your hands?" answers what it takes to rescue this life of mine from self-serving intellect or from selfglorifying moralizing. It offers a visual answer as to the lengths Christ has gone to reach my own pain, and it brings me to a place from which I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. It buries the self that seeks the self and brings to birth the fullest person that God has so uniquely endowed.
That is to say, in the cross I ñnd my definitive loss that I might obtain my greatest gain. Only when the skeptic and the believer can see those marks that prompt "What happened to your hands?" can life's questions cease and answers pour forth from the depths of the soul.
From talk show hosts to all of us who wrestle with life's questions, the answer is the same. The longer I have lived the more I have come to believe that it is not evidence of which we are short, or the knowledge of discipleship of which we are deprived. For most, what we lack is the courage and peace to go to the cross and to die to ourselves, prompting the world to ask, "What happened to your hands?" There the purpose of history and the purpose of life converge. Our questions will always remain. But these two for me are reminders of where the answers ultimately have to lead.
With this in mind, Calvin Miller said:
The sermón and the Spirit always work in combination to pronounce liberation.
Sometimes the Spirit and sermón do supply direct answers to human need, but most often they answer indirectly. Most problems are not solved by listening to sermons. The sermón, no matter how sincere, cannot solve these unsolvable problems. So if the sermón is not a problem solver, where shall we go for Solutions? Together with the Spirit, the sermón exists to point out that having answers is not essential to living. What is essential is the sense of God's presence during dark seasons of questioning. . . . Our need for specific answers
is dissolved in the greater issue of the lordship of Christ over all questions— those that have answers and those that don't.
To Miller's statement I would just change the last line to read, "Those that have only intellectual answers and those that transcend the intellect." Or better still,
"Those that Bethlehem can answer and those that only Calvary can."
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. Why are Jesús' nail-scarred hands life-deñning?
2. What does author Calvin Miller suggest is essential to living? Do you agree?
PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. If you could interview Jesús Christ, what one question would you ask Him?
2. As you wrestle with life's questions or help another work through his or hers, do you believe there is a lack of evidence or perhaps courage to follow through where the answer leads? How might you probe deeper and surrender to God's guidance?
JUDGING THE JUDGES
The Lord reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your ñame trust in you, for you. Lord, have never forsaken those who seek yon.
PSALM 9:7-10
uring the 2002 Winter Olympics, a major publication featured a headline that read, "Crybaby Olympics." The article highlighted the refrain of complaints launched by several competitors who felt they had been robbed of their legitímate attainment by some tinscrupulous judge. In any competition there is always the possibility that someone has been cheated out of winning. Anyone who has ever competed knows the feeling of suspicion when medals are awarded on an inexact basis of measurement. Judging is a hazardous task, but so is judging the judges.
The truth is that judgment calis are part and parcel of most sports. In baseball it's the balls and strikes. The oíd adage holds trae of the umpire who said, "There are balls and there are strikes, and they ain't nothing till I cali them." Cricket has that element too. It's too complicated a game to explain in a few words. But anyone who goes to bat knows he can be the victim of a bad cali. The hesitancy to leave the batman's box or the home píate speaks volumes that the one called
"out" has not taken kindly to the decisión. In Toronto when I used to watch hockey, oftentimes when the home crowd disagreed with the referee's cali, the organist played "Three Blind Mice," referring to the referee and his two able or "questionable" linesmen.
However legitímate one's complaint might be, the fearful thing is that the winners of the award never seem to stop by the judge's desk and say, "Excuse me, but I really do not think I deserved that." Winners seldom question the validity of the judge's decisión. Losers often do.
All this displeasure proves two things. One, we expect a judge to be objective and fair. Two, there is a more serious concern: How does a judge actually judge if there are no absolutes by which to do the judging? You see, it is one thing to measure how far an object has been thrown and another thing to say which was a more beautiful performance on the ice. The latter demands an aesthetic measure, which is not always exact and can be quite subjective.
But you see, deep inside all of us are both of these moral realities. We affirm the need to be right and fair, and we somehow believe that even in beauty there are some misjudgments that reveal prejudice. What this tells us is that life must have absolutes. Even the aesthetic has to ñnd some point of reference.
Interestingly, God in His Word tells us to worship Him in "the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 96:9 kjv). Even beauty has an element of judgment. This itself reveáis the fact that we are born as moral agents and when that moral agency is violated—whether in the objective or subjective—deep inside we cry foul.
Judgment is unjust if the judge is corrupt. After all, is that not also the supposed weight of the question "How can God do such a thing?" The writers of the Bible spoke with that quest for justice. "Let me plead my cause," they cry. Job questioned God as thoroughly as anyone, and he was considered one of the most upright ever to have lived.
The Bible makes it clear that God is a Judge and He is fair. One of the most telling passages is in the book of Génesis when God was judging the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham was troubled and asked God if He was going to wipe out both the righteous and the unrighteous. God assured Abraham that He saw everything, and Abraham replied, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Génesis 18:25). That is the comfort we all need and the moral assurance we may all have. God sees all, knows all, and His judgments are right. It's a word of comfort we must have when we come before Him. May I remind us that reason alone does not work here.
My father-in-law said he had an older brother who was brilliant in any work he assigned. If a heavy toy or game was brought downstairs with which to play, at the end of the enjoyment, he would say, "I brought it down, now you take it up."
That worked well until the younger one brought it down. Then the older brother would say, "You brought it down, so it's your responsibility to take it up." No matter what, it always ended up with the younger one having to take it up. Such
is the shifting sand of logic when we apply it to others. In more serious matters, the humor vanishes, and the pain emerges.
You and I may not have been robbed of a medal in the Olympics. But we do know that when destiny-defining decisions are made, the Judge of all the earth will do right. We can rest in the knowledge that our Lord is both just and gracious. He knows the absolutes, and He will not make a mistake. That is both comforting and daunting. We must take responsibility, and we must not live in fear or torment when we know the Advócate we have with the Father.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. What does Psalm 9 communicate about God as Judge?
2. Why must there be an absolute standard to rightly judge? How does this standard point to the reality of God's existence?
PERSONAL APPLICATION
í. Consider when you endured unfair judgment, whether in a simple game or a more serious situation. What emotions did you experience? If you still have unresolved anger and mistrust, invite God to bring justice, peace, and healing.
2. Have you wrongly judged someone? How might you make amends and ask forgiveness today?
JUSTICE AND VIRTUE
Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because "the righteous will live by faith." The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, "The person who does these things will live by them." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesús, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
GALATIANS 3:11-14
/\s I mentioned in the previous reading, when poor judging denies an athlete a rightful victory, fans readily sympathize with their hurt. I wish to take it further, into the very heart of all reality. After all the effort and the pain that goes into preparing for competition, it is no doubt a disheartening sight to ñnd dishonesty robbing the reward.
Although such a loss is merely that in athletic competition, it points to the greater need of how important being just really is. This truth is one of the most pertinent in any civilized society. George Washington said, "The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government."Previously,
Aristotle had gone even further. He said: "Justice in this sense, then, is not part of virtue but virtue entire, ñor is the contrary injustice a part of vice but vice entire. "
One does not have to fully agree to note the power of what is being said. Justice is virtue entire? Being just is the sum and substance of good morality? Well, think about this. Suppose you say you love somebody, but you are unjust in your dealings with him or her. How would that person respond to your words, "But I love you"? Or what if you tell somebody that you will always speak the truth, but there will be times you are unjust in dealing with the truth? You see the point, don't you? Justice is an intrinsic part of virtue. You can judge without loving, but you can't love without also being just. That is a painful truth to stomach.
God in His nature is puré and just. His justice meets the demands of the law that must be met, if you and I are to be recipients of His mercy.
To the Christian, Good Friday is a very special day, because on that day two thousand years ago, a puré and just God paid the penalty for our separation from Him and made the way to be forgiven and live in a loving relationship with Him.
There is one verse in the Bible that occurs three times: once in the book of Hebrews to the Hebrew church, once in the book of Galatians to the church in Asia Minor, and once in the book of Romans to the European church. Each time it is a thought quoted from the Oíd Testament prophet Habakkuk. The verse says simply: "The just shall live by his faith" (2:4 nkjv). That verse comes within the context of Habakkuk asking God how He could witness rampant violence and tolérate wrong and evil. That question troubled Habakkuk, and it is within that context that God said to him that "the visión is yet for an appointed time" (2:3 nkjv).
That is an amazing word of how justice will not ultimately be thwarted. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, "The milis of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."- Elsewhere, the Scriptures remind us: "Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy" (Proverbs 29:1). That is a sobering reminder that God's patience as well has its limit, if justice is to be fulñlled.
That is why the cross is the centerpiece of the gospel message. It is truly the intersection of love and justice, judgment and grace, exactitude and mercy. The demands of the law cali for perfection. But the law itself cannot transform the human heart. What this really means is that perfection cannot get us into heaven, but our faith in the Perfect One can. His justice comes hand in hand with love.
And neither ever violates the other.
Justice and love carne in our Savior. We receive those twin gifts and must dispense them as well. In an amazing way, even the most popular of all verses,
John 3:16, has underlying it a legal reality. How beautiful of our Lord to take the strength of the law and give it the Savior's touch. Truly, sublimity at its best.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. You can judge without loving, bnt you can't love without also being just.
Explain.
2. How is the cross the centerpiece of the gospel message?
PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. What are the "twin gifts" Christ offers you? How might you dispense them to others this week?
2. God has a "new day" for you today because Scripture promises His mercies are "new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). Spend time meditating on Lamentations 3:22-23, and thank God for His mercy and love.
BEYOND MORALITY
"Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Whoever ñnds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."
MATTHEW 10:38-39
/\s human beings, we have the capacity to feel with moral implications, to exercise the gift of imagination, and to think in paradigms. We make judgments according to the way we each individually view or interpret the world around us.
Even if we do not agree with each other on what ought to be, we recognize that there must be—and that there is—an ought. For example, we all ought to behave in certain ways or else we cannot get along, which is why we have laws. In short, we ascribe to ourselves freedom with boundaries.
Yet too often we shun boundaries because we feel impeded or we're afraid they will deprive us of what we think we really want. While we know that freedom cannot be absolute, we still resist any notion of limitation—at least for ourselves.
The Bible does not mute its warning here. We are drawn like moths to the fíame toward that which often crosses known boundaries, that can destroy, and yet we flirt with those dangers. But at the end of life, we seldom hear regrets for not going into forbidden terrain. I do not know of any Christian at death's threshold who exercised self-control yet wished he or she had been an atheist or had lived an indulgent life. But I have known many in the reverse situation.
In this inconsistency we witness unintended consequences. As I have noted before, I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out. That failure not only robs us of our inner peace but mars the intended light that a consistently lived life brings to the one observing our message.
After lecturing at a major American university, I was driven to the airport by the organizer of the event. I was quite jolted by what he told me. He said, "My wife
brought our neighbor last night. She is a medical doctor and had not been to anything like this before. On their way home, my wife asked her what she thought of it all." He paused and then continued, "Do you know what she said?"
Rather reluctantly, I shook my head.
"She said, That was a very powerful evening. The arguments were very persuasive. I wonder what he is like in his private life.' "
The answers were intellectually and existentially satisfying, but she still needed to know, did they really make a difference in the life of the one proclaiming them? In other words, the message is seen before it is heard. For any skeptic, the answers to questions are not enough; he or she looks deeper, to the visible transformation of the one offering them.
Here we must bring a different caution. Christianity is deñnitively and drastically different from all other religions. In every religión except Christianity, morality is a means of attainment. No amount of goodness can justify us before a sovereign God. The Christian message is a reminder that our true malady is one that morality alone cannot solve. Our fundamental problem is not moral; rather, our fundamental problem is spiritual. It is not just that we are immoral, but that a moral life alone cannot bridge what separates us from God. Herein lies the cardinal difference between the moralizing religions and Jesús' offer to us: Jesús does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.
A heart transformed by God's grace is the efficacious power that lifts us beyond mere morality. It is the richness of being right with God. His grace makes up for what our wills cannot accomplish.
At its core, the cali of Jesús is a bountiful invitation to trust and to live in the freedom and riches of that relationship. I am only free inasmuch as I can surrender to God and trust Him to give me the purpose for which my soul longs.
This is the wonder and power of a redeemed heart. If I cannot surrender and trust
Him, I am not free. We must know to whom we belong and who calis us all to the same purpose. Only when I am at peace with God can I be at peace with myself, and only then will I be at peace with my fellow humans and truly free.
In surrendering to Christ we have the victory over sin. When we die to ourselves,
Christ then lives within us. When that crucified life is seen, men and women are
drawn to the Savior because they see what the gospel does in a surrendered heart. That witness lives within the boundaries our Lord set for us and takes us beyond mere morality to the life of the soul that is set free.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. What is the single greatest obstacle to the gospel, and what challenge does it present?
2. Why can't morality alone solve our trae malady?